Sunday, November 8, 2009

Re: [CALPCandidates] Re: excellent article for state candidates

Brian Cross wrote:

BC) Does this differ much from Henry George's conception? (BC

The principles and ethics are definitely Georgist, but some of the implementation details and terminology may be from his interpreters. I haven't actually read George directly, as Dr. Foldvary's writing is so clear and compelling.

Another wrinkle that is probably a Foldvary addition is what I call centrifugal financing: revenue should only be directly collected by the most local level of government that can collect it, and all higher levels of government should have to request revenue from lower levels. This is somewhat similar to the revenue architecture of the Articles of Confederation.

Georgists make some interesting empirical claims that government reliance on property taxation (as opposed to taxation of income and sales) correlates with more freedom and prosperity. They site New Hampshire as the poster child for the good case, and California (with its high income and sales taxes) as the poster child for the bad case. More info at http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/gaffney_noyes_lossesofnations1.html.